Faust and Job: The Dual Facets of Happiness

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

 

This interesting paper draws attention to two different facets of happiness, one expressed in Job (emphasizing patience) and the other in Goethe’s Faust (stressing aspiration). The author contends that clarifying the difference between these two (apparently conflicting but actually reconcilable through attention to the backward or forward looking temporal dimensions) understandings of happiness helps to sort out several puzzles and issues, including the “Easterlin paradox” concerning the relation between income and well-being.

The central contrast between the Faust/Job conceptions of happiness is, I think, well worth pursuing, and interesting enough to justify considering a revised version of this paper in which it is more front and center. However, the needed revisions would be very extensive, not just a minor fixing-up exercise. The current version is organized in an extremely confusing way, and needs to be reordered so that the Faust/Job contrast is more prominent and developed upfront, before then turning to the wider discussion about the relation between well-being and happiness. This would require a fairly radical inversion of the existing structure. It would also need active resistance to the overly self-conscious and sometimes obsessive provisos and qualifications that encumber especially the first portion of the paper, and get the discussion off to a very awkward and off-putting start.

To whit, the first few pages of the paper are much too hard to follow. It is unclear, especially, whether the main aim of the paper is:

1. to insist on the distinction between happiness (consisting in conscious attitudes to one’s current level of well-being) and well-being simpliciter (and the states constituting it); OR
2. to draw attention to the difference – illustrated by the Faust/Job contrast – between two sorts of happiness, both of which are distinct from well-being simpliciter.

Much of the paper is written as if 1. is the main thesis. But readers will struggle to understand why elaborating the contrast highlighted in 2. helps defend 1. Someone who doubts the happiness/well-being distinction will not be helped by being told that happiness comes in two forms. They will just say that if so, then well-being comes in two forms also. So it seems that author actually needs two arguments to make his/her full case: first, a set of arguments establishing that indeed well-being and happiness are distinct; second, with that distinction established, he/she then wants to use Faust and Job to show that the latter turns out to come in two forms. This needs to be sorted out.

There is also some confusion, I think, in the way the author conceptualizes “utility”, which he/she seems to regard as equivalent to welfare or well-being in the early moves. But that’s not right: in both classical utilitarianism and modern economics, something has utility to the extent that it tends to promote welfare: it is not welfare itself. Thus, income has utility for a neo-classical economist insofar as it is needed to satisfy a consumer’s preferences. But income, per se, is not well-being, just a means to achieving it. Similarly, for Bentham or Mill, legal prohibitions have utility insofar as they produce a net surplus of aggregate welfare, despite the ill-being suffered by those punished. But a high level of aggregate welfare is not utility. Rather, but it is the outcome that makes it true that the means for achieving it (in this case a certain pattern of legal prohibitions) have a corresponding degree of utility. On p. 7, author describes his/her “separation” of “consumed goods” and “well-being” as an innovation, in the course of a confusing engagement with various scholastic debates. But this is not an innovation at all: it is just the traditional distinction between utility and welfare. This whole discussion could be deleted or treated more briskly. As it stands, it throws a lot of jargon at the reader without really clarifying what the paper is trying to achieve.

As I have suggested, the better way to proceed is to start with the Job/Faust contrast, and then open these more technical cans of worms only later on, to the extent that doing so is necessary to draw out the lessons of that contrast.

I also found it frustrating to be told that the author’s analysis is important for thinking about the Easterlin paradox, but then to be informed that the paper won’t explain why. Rather than satisfy the curiosity the author has engendered in the reader’s mind on this point, he/she instead wastes time explaining why other resolutions of the paradox (“set-point”, “relative income”) fail. Teasing readers in this way is a sure way to alienate them. In my view, he/she should make the Job/Faust contrast the opening centerpiece, jettisoning all the confusing scene-setting that starts the current version, and then use the space freed up to: (1) give a much clearer account of the implications of that contrast for our understanding of the relation between happiness and welfare; and (2) actually show how the argument might resolve the Easterlin paradox. Without (2) the discussion of “set-point” and “relative income” lacks any relevance to the paper’s main argument.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The subject and paper are interesting, though I do believe the manuscript could use editing. There is quite a bit of repetition around the central issue. The repetition seems to be due to coming at the main subject from different points of view, but in each case I do not believe anything new is being presented (more a rehashing of the central points). The repetition revolves around the central analysis that is presented on the Table 1. This is a very concise description of views you are seeking to disrupt or call into question. The information on this Table, however, is given a detailed explanation at least four other times in the manuscript. The Table is a very good approach to putting the distinctions, though I feel only one detailed explanation of this would suffice for a reader's understanding of the central points of your argument.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This version of the paper is much tighter and more direct than its predecessor, and I am happy to recommend publication, with minor revisions. I have only two main suggestions for improving the presentation. First, as the paper progresses, it becomes increasingly clear that the author’s target is the category of “subjective well-being.” While the present version indicates this in the early stages, I think the theme could be brought out more prominently at the start. The cash-value of the author’s Faust/Job contrast is supposed to be that it reveals the psychologists/behavioral economics notion of “subjective well-being” is simplistic. But that needs to be stated front and center from the start, and used as a springboard motivating the Faust/Job contrast. I would also recommend flagging near the start that the author’s “dual aspect” proposal recruits the idea that happiness consists in part in emotional evaluations of one’s situation. This point is implicit in the author’s discussion of Faust and Job, but isn’t fully highlighted until sec. 2.4, where Prinz is mentioned. I think the presentation would be clearer if the relevance of affective attitudes to present circumstances was mentioned at the beginning, as it would help readers appreciate the nature of the insight he/she wishes to draw from Job and Faust.

Second, I still find the discussion of Easterlin frustrating. The author identifies several failed attempts at resolving the paradox, but only hints that his/her dual-aspect approach to happiness “may” provide a solution. But I think readers will want more than this, and that the paper would be stronger if this hint were developed at least a little more. I get that a full explanation might take too long, but I think some guidance as to how the forward/backward looking distinction introduced by the author helps address the Easterlin paradox is needed. It was not clear to this reader how it helps (part of the problem is that the Easterlin paradox is explained in a rather confusing way at the start of sec. 3; readers have to work too hard to join the dots and relate it to the struggles of Faust and Job). This is important, not only because it would avoid tantalizing the reader, but also because it would strengthen the author’s overall point that the Job/Faust contrast has a real payoff. Even in this version, the author’s discussion has a slightly “inside-baseball” feel, making technical amendments to a suite of rather esoteric assumptions made in the scholarly literature. Without a clearer sense of that payoff, readers may find that the paper as a whole is scholastic rather than substantive. The discussion of the “just world” hypothesis helps a bit, but having promised the reader that the author’s discussion helps address Easterlin, and therefore responds to the “So what?” question, no clear strategy for doing so is spelled out. To close the arch linking Faust/Job with Easterlin, the author needs to show a bit more leg on this point, even if a full explanation is beyond the scope of this paper.

Author Response

This version of the paper is much tighter and more direct than its predecessor, and I am happy to recommend publication, with minor revisions.

I appreciate the recommendation.

 

I have only two main suggestions for improving the presentation. First, as the paper progresses, it becomes increasingly clear that the author’s target is the category of “subjective well-being.” While the present version indicates this in the early stages, I think the theme could be brought out more prominently at the start. The cash-value of the author’s Faust/Job contrast is supposed to be that it reveals the psychologists/behavioral economics notion of “subjective well-being” is simplistic. But that needs to be stated front and center from the start, and used as a springboard motivating the Faust/Job contrast.

I concur with the suggestion. Therefore, I re-wrote the introductory paragraphs. The revision brings upfront the wellbeing/happiness distinction—while relegating the contrast of “Job” and “Faust” to a later paragraph:

 

Introduction

This paper uncovers two facets of happiness: what it calls “happiness-as-tranquility” and “happiness-as-aspiration”. While happiness-as-tranquility typifies the human tendency to accept the wellbeing that their past has handed them, happiness-as-aspiration characterizes the human tendency to seek, as long as without excess or exaggeration, a higher goal in the future. The two facets of happiness stem from different reflections upon the same wellbeing—whereas “wellbeing” is equivalent to the economist’s concept of “utility” or “welfare” that is called here (pecuniary) “substantive satisfaction”. The fact that the same wellbeing gives rise to two facets of happiness must entail the proposition that happiness differs from wellbeing. Indeed, this paper advances two interrelated theses:

Two Interrelated Core Theses: First thesis, there are two facets of happiness that arise, nonetheless, from the same wellbeing. Second thesis, given that there are two facets of happiness arising from the same wellbeing, happiness must differ from wellbeing.

Everyday people and probably most thinkers find the second thesis, viz., the wellbeing/happiness distinction, to be intuitive, if not utterly obvious. Therefore, those everyday people and most thinkers are up for a surprise: Most of happiness studies and psychology literature employ and unquestionably endorse the “subjective well-being” concept—a concept expressly designed to obliterate at first approximation the difference between the two gauges of human satisfaction—wellbeing and happiness. Thus, this paper must question, if not confront, the subjective well-being concept in order to establish the first thesis regarding the two facets of happiness.[1]

Otherwise, if we go along the literature and conflate wellbeing and happiness, it would be difficult to explain, not to mention identify, the two facets of happiness. If wellbeing and happiness denote the same thing, how could wellbeing give rise to two (and probably more) facets of happiness?

To support the first thesis regarding the two facets of happiness, this paper leans on two famous works of literature: The Old Testament's The Book of Job and Goethe’s Faust. While The Book of Job expounds the virtue of happiness-as-tranquility, Faust alerts humans of the inescapable happiness-as-aspiration. The Book of Job demonstrates how happiness-as-tranquility arises if Job accepts his fortune (or in fact misfortune) when he ruminates and reflects upon his current wellbeing as better than being dead. Faust demonstrates how happiness-as-aspiration arises if Faust does not desire a future wellbeing that is excessively greater than his current/predicted one. The reason why the same satisfaction (i.e., wellbeing) gives rise to one or the other facet of happiness is that the decision maker employs different contexts when she ruminates/reflects upon current/predicted wellbeing or what this paper aims to establish.

 

 

I would also recommend flagging near the start that the author’s “dual aspect” proposal recruits the idea that happiness consists in part in emotional evaluations of one’s situation. This point is implicit in the author’s discussion of Faust and Job, but isn’t fully highlighted until sec. 2.4, where Prinz is mentioned. I think the presentation would be clearer if the relevance of affective attitudes to present circumstances was mentioned at the beginning, as it would help readers appreciate the nature of the insight he/she wishes to draw from Job and Faust.

I understand and agree. I added the following paragraph at the start (succeeding the previous paragraph):

The proposed wellbeing/happiness distinction is premised on a view of how “contexts” per se function. When the decision maker employs a context in the act of rumination and reflection upon wellbeing, the context is not another element of the wellbeing set. A context rather functions as the ground while wellbeing acts as the figure—as exemplified in Rubin’s vase (Author, 2021). The act of rumination and reflection is not a simple psychological process. It is rather a complex process in the sense of expressing a two-level constituents: substantive matter, i.e., wellbeing, operates at the primitive level, i.e., as the figure in Rubin’s base, while the context operates at a secondary level, i.e., as the ground in Rubin’s vase. This paper promises to show how happiness is the by-product feeling arising from such complex, i.e., the operation at these two levels. Thus, happiness is a context-dependent emotion, whereas wellbeing is a simple (primitive) feeling in the sense of being a context-free emotion. 

 

 

Second, I still find the discussion of Easterlin frustrating. The author identifies several failed attempts at resolving the paradox, but only hints that his/her dual-aspect approach to happiness “may” provide a solution. But I think readers will want more than this, and that the paper would be stronger if this hint were developed at least a little more. I get that a full explanation might take too long, but I think some guidance as to how the forward/backward looking distinction introduced by the author helps address the Easterlin paradox is needed. It was not clear to this reader how it helps (part of the problem is that the Easterlin paradox is explained in a rather confusing way at the start of sec. 3; readers have to work too hard to join the dots and relate it to the struggles of Faust and Job). This is important, not only because it would avoid tantalizing the reader, but also because it would strengthen the author’s overall point that the Job/Faust contrast has a real payoff. Even in this version, the author’s discussion has a slightly “inside-baseball” feel, making technical amendments to a suite of rather esoteric assumptions made in the scholarly literature. Without a clearer sense of that payoff, readers may find that the paper as a whole is scholastic rather than substantive. The discussion of the “just world” hypothesis helps a bit, but having promised the reader that the author’s discussion helps address Easterlin, and therefore responds to the “So what?” question, no clear strategy for doing so is spelled out. To close the arch linking Faust/Job with Easterlin, the author needs to show a bit more leg on this point, even if a full explanation is beyond the scope of this paper.

I understand and hence I re-wrote the text regarding the Easterlin paradox:

3.1 The Income-Happiness (Easterlin) Paradox

As stated at the outset, the Easterlin paradox is about an inconsistency in the empirical data. These are two sets of data, each indicating a different relation between income and happiness:

1. Cross-Section Set of Data: The cross-section shows that happiness is a positive function of income. This cross-section set of data tends to delight the typical/stylized economist.
2. Time-Series Set of Data: The time-series shows that happiness is independent of income for countries that have reached a critical level of prosperity. This time-series data tends to delight the typical/stylized psychologist.

The income-happiness paradox is not that happiness may not rise with income—as the case in rich countries. Rather, it is this fact coupled with another fact, happiness does rise with income even in the same rich countries.

To solve the paradox, as detailed elsewhere (Author, 2022), we need to examine the questions behind the two sets of data. The question can be different—which explains the contradictory account of the income-happiness nexus.

In the cross-section set of data, which pleases the stylized economist,  the survey questions ask people how they feel about their life so far. This type of survey questions prompts people to pause their activity and reflect. They reflect by contrasting their current wellbeing against the backward-looking context of their wellbeing in the past. The backward-looking context can be close to the fact. It also can be somewhat imagined, the subject of selective memory. Furthermore, it can be a counterfactual—as in the case when one loses a hand in an accident and contrasts his current wellbeing to the counterfactual of losing the whole arm.

If the backward-looking context involves a lower leverl of income, as has been the case for the growing rich economies, there is an improvement. Thus, the cross-section data shows an unambiguous monotonic relationship between happiness and income: Happiness will rise as long as income rises. When asked, hence, people express contentment, clearly showings that happiness tracks income.

Such cross-section set of data is more-or-less captured by the Book of Job—with a slight modification. Given that Job’s backward-looking context is much better than his current wellbeing, he is highly unhappy—and even angry to the extent of almost ready to curse God (see Author, 2023). However, God appeared to him, in the form of his youngest friend, Elihu, advising him to use a counterfactual: Job and his wife are dead. Given this backward-looking (counterfactual) context, Job experiences happiness, happiness-as-tranquility. He and his wife should feel happy (happiness-as-tranquility) for simply being still alive.

In contrast, the time-series set of data, which pleases the stylized psychologist, is what one should expect when survey questions ask people how they feel at this moment. As detailed elsewhere (Author, 2022), this type of survey questions prompts people to assess their day in relation to their goal aspiration. Given that people have always a goal aspiration, irrespective of their income, that is more ambitious than their current income, they will give the same answer about their happiness. The answer expresses happiness-as-aspiration. Given they are rational, i.e., have a reasonable level of aspired desires, they maintain the same upbeat about the future. Thus, even if their current income rises from one period to the next, their aspired goal is still ahead expressing the same gap, they express the same level of happiness-as-aspiration.

Put differently, the outcome should be happiness-as-aspiration whose level is somewhat steady, i.e., independent of income.

This time-series data set shows that there is a disconnect between income and happiness. Such an outcome expresses the struggles of Faust, making sure to choose a reasonable level of ambition that avoids the misery of boredom, on the one hand, the misery of being a “looser,” on the other hand.

In Faust, there is no reference to the current level of income or stature of Faust. What matters is keeping a reasonable level of aspiration that assures him (positive) happiness-as-aspiration.

The only qualification, mentioned above, in the operation of happiness-as-aspiration that is independent of the level of income is that  people must have already reached a level of income security, i.e., do not have to worry about daily survival. The only worry for such economically secure people is the pursuit of an aspired goal, where people set up a higher goal each week or month, keeping up with their achievements.

To sum-up, with the help of the Job/Faust contrast, allowing us to decipher the two facets of happiness, we can understand why there is “inconsistency” in the two data sets. It turns out, there is no inconsistency; there is no Easterlin paradox. Each set of data simply speaks to a different facet of happiness.

 

 

[1] Another paper (Author, 2025) also questions the employment of “wellbeing” and “happiness” to denote the same thing. However, it proceeds from a totally different ground. It examines whether  the difficulty facing the economist concept “social welfare function” in accounting for altruist preferences is similar to its difficulty in accounting for fondness/love preferences (see Ng, 1999; Sen, 2017).

Author Response File: Author Response.docx